This website uses cookies in order to enhance your experience. Please review our Privacy Policy to learn how we may use cookies and how you can change your browser settings to disable cookies. By continuing to use this website without changing your settings, you consent to our use of cookies.

Lena Dunham wrote a self-serving 'apology' letter to the woman whose sexual assault claim she denied. The Internet isn't having it.

For a so-called feminist, Dunham does a mean impression of male entitlement.

“This year has been incredible for women in Hollywood,” Lena Dunham’s love letter to herself, which promises to include an apology to Aurora Perrineau—somewhere—begins. “We have spoken and we have spoken loudly, and our voices, once muffled under layers of crinoline and repressed rage, have been heard.”

In “have been heard,” she prematurely and presumptuously tucks the voices of #MeToo—many of whom remain radio silent—squarely in the past-tense. A summation of Dunham’s thinking here, intended or not, is this: “I have spoken loudly. I have been heard. And therefore all women have spoken loudly. All women have been heard. Right? What a triumph! We can all finally shut up, now—right after I’m done talking.”

Which is ironic, of course, when ostensibly the point of her piece is to apologize—for silencing a woman.

Equally galling are her unconscious displays of privilege, white and otherwise.

Who among us can suppress a rueful smile upon reading, “our voices, once muffled under layers of crinoline?”

As if the majority of women descend from great-grandmothers who languished in Edith Wharton drawing rooms and Rooms Of Our Own, trussed up in hoops and petticoats—as if the majority of women don’t descend from great-grandmothers who dragged their way through time from dust-blown farms, tenements, or slaves’ quarters, muffled under layers of burlap, blood, and baby shit.

The eye roll continues with, “there are magazine covers and TV specials and parties and instas celebrating the very real, very important and long overdue progress that has made.” Since when are magazine covers, TV specials, parties, and—above all—Instagramindicative of anything real?

The media blitz is nothing greater than glorified P.R.—a premature congratulations for acknowledging a problem without even beginning to solve it.

Her examples of progress reek of classism, referencing an insular experience (parties?) from which most people in Hollywood—thousands upon thousands of crew members, teamsters, assistants, and struggling artists—are excluded.

Have those women been heard? Have they witnessed, “very real, very important,” progress? I honestly don’t know. One would have to ask—and to ask, one would have to assume they have yet to be heard.

When she gets to the apology, things get worse. “To Aurora:” she addresses me and a million anonymous readers. “You have been on my mind and in my heart every day this year. I love you. I will always love you.”

In the words of venerable feminist icon and abuse survivor Tina Turner: “What’s love got to do with it?”

Love is cheap—particularly when declared on a public forum (well, unless you’re in some repressive, love-that-dare-not-speak-its-name scenario—then, by all means, shout it from the rooftops).

And love is particularly cheap when declared to a person to whom you owe contrition. In the context of an apology—to a virtual stranger—love is distracting, irrelevant, discombobulating, and subtly manipulative, robbing the maligned of their right to anger by muddying it with guilt (because are you allowed to hate someone who wuvs you?)

She doesn’t love Perrineau—she’s spinning a tale—selling the Romance of Sisterhood. Perrineau is a symbol: the Magdalene she learned to love in order to become Feminist Jesus. And by reducing Perrineau to a narrative device in the Story of Lena Dunham’s Redemption, she strips Perrineau of her own truth, her own story.

Again.

On an old episode of "The Oprah Winfrey Show" in July 1992, Oprah put her audience through a social experiment that puts racism in a new light. Despite being nearly two decades old, it's as relevant today as ever.

She split the audience members into two groups based on their eye color. Those with brown eyes were given preferential treatment by getting to cut the line and given refreshments while they waited to be seated. Those with blue eyes were made to put on a green collar and wait in a crowd for two hours.

Staff were instructed to be extra polite to brown-eyed people and to discriminate against blue-eyed people. Her guest for that day's show was diversity expert Jane Elliott, who helped set up the experiment and played along, explaining that brown-eyed people were smarter than blue-eyed people.

Cadbury has removed the words from its Dairy Milk chocolate bars in the U.K. to draw attention to a serious issue, senior loneliness.

On September 4, Cadbury released the limited-edition candy bars in supermarkets and for every one sold, the candy giant will donate 30p (37 cents) to Age UK, an organization dedicated to improving the quality of life for the elderly.

Cadbury was prompted to help the organization after it was revealed that 225,000 elderly people in the UK often go an entire week without speaking to another person.

Young people today are facing what seems to be greater exposure to complex issues like mental health, bullying, and youth violence. As a result, teachers are required to be well-versed in far more than school curriculum to ensure students are prepared to face the world inside and outside of the classroom. Acting as more than teachers, but also mentors, counselors, and cheerleaders, they must be equipped with practical and relevant resources to help their students navigate some of the more complicated social issues – though access to such tools isn't always guaranteed.

Take Dr. Jackie Sanderlin, for example, who's worked in the education system for over 25 years, and as a teacher for seven. Entering the profession, she didn't anticipate how much influence a student's home life could affect her classroom, including "students who lived in foster homes" and "lacked parental support."

Dr. Jackie Sanderlin, who's worked in the education system for over 25 years.

Valerie Anglemyer, a middle school teacher with more than 13 years of experience, says it can be difficult to create engaging course work that's applicable to the challenges students face. "I think that sometimes, teachers don't know where to begin. Teachers are always looking for ways to make learning in their classrooms more relevant."

So what resources do teachers turn to in an increasingly fractured world? "Joining a professional learning network that supports and challenges thinking is one of the most impactful things that a teacher can do to support their own learning," Anglemyer says.

Valerie Anglemyer, a middle school teacher with more than 13 years of experience.

A new program for teachers that offers this network along with other resources is the WE Teachers Program, an initiative developed by Walgreens in partnership with ME to WE and Mental Health America. WE Teachers provides tools and resources, at no cost to teachers, looking for guidance around the social issues related to poverty, youth violence, mental health, bullying, and diversity and inclusion. Through online modules and trainings as well as a digital community, these resources help them address the critical issues their students face.

Jessica Mauritzen, a high school Spanish teacher, credits a network of support for providing her with new opportunities to enrich the learning experience for her students. "This past year was a year of awakening for me and through support… I realized that I was able to teach in a way that built up our community, our school, and our students, and supported them to become young leaders," she says.

With the new WE Teachers program, teachers can learn to identify the tough issues affecting their students, secure the tools needed to address them in a supportive manner, and help students become more socially-conscious, compassionate, and engaged citizens.

It's a potentially life-saving experience for students, and in turn, "a great gift for teachers," says Dr. Sanderlin.

"I wish I had the WE Teachers program when I was a teacher because it provides the online training and resources teachers need to begin to grapple with these critical social issues that plague our students every day," she adds.

In addition to the WE Teachers curriculum, the program features a WE Teachers Award to honor educators who go above and beyond in their classrooms. At least 500 teachers will be recognized and each will receive a $500 Walgreens gift card, which is the average amount teachers spend out-of-pocket on supplies annually. Teachers can be nominated or apply themselves. To learn more about the awards and how to nominate an amazing teacher, or sign up for access to the teacher resources available through WE Teachers, visit walgreens.com/metowe.

One of the major differences between women and men is that women are often judged based on their looks rather than their character or abilities.

"Men as well as women tend to establish the worth of individual women primarily by the way their body looks, research shows. We do not do this when we evaluate men," Naomi Ellemers Ph.D. wrote in Psychology Today.

Dr. Ellers believes that this tendency to judge a woman solely on her looks causes them to be seen as an object rather than a person.